First death reported at SRJ for 2023

Mar. 8—A Crab Orchard man facing multiple charges including murder died at Southern Regional Jail last week, three days before a scheduled court hearing.

Herbert Wayne Doss, 48, of Crab Orchard died Friday while incarcerated at Southern Regional Jail (SRJ), according to his obituary filed with Raleigh County Circuit Court.

Doss had been at SRJ since December 2021 when he was initially arrested and charged with murder.

Raleigh County Prosecuting Attorney Ben Hatfield told The Register-Herald Wednesday that "it doesn't appear that foul play was involved, at this time. However, it's under investigation."

Hatfield said Doss' body was transported to the state's medical examiner's office for an autopsy, and it would likely take six to eight months for a report to be finalized and sent to his office.

"I don't anticipate hearing anything back until probably around the summer in terms of cause of death," he said.

This is the first death to be reported at SRJ this year. Last year more than a dozen deaths occurred at SRJ though the state has not publicly released the names of all the deceased.

Some of these deaths have prompted protests and calls for an independent federal investigation into SRJ for any possible wrongdoing.

In a release to The Register-Herald on Tuesday, Andy Malinoski, the director of marketing and communications for the West Virginia Department of Commerce, said there have been six deaths in state-run jails this year.

"In 2023 there have been six deaths of inmates that were in the custody of the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation," Malinoski said in a release. "At this time, four of those deaths were determined to be of natural causes. Two of the deaths are still under investigation. No foul play is suspected in the remaining two deaths that are under investigation."

When asked which jails the deaths took place at, the names of the deceased and when they died, Malinoski said he did not have that information at his "disposal" "at the moment."

A spike in deaths at SRJ last year as well as reports that inmates have been denied food, water and proper medical treatment has sparked a number of investigations as well as a federal class action lawsuit.

Hatfield said he was only notified of Doss' death because he was "a defendant in one of my cases."

Hatfield said he is usually not notified of inmates' death at SRJ unless there are "suspicious circumstances surrounding it."

With more public eyes on SRJ following claims from family members of deceased inmates that their loved one's death could have been prevented, Hatfield said only an investigation can determine whether these deaths are part of a larger problem at SRJ or completely unrelated.

"When investigating something like that, you tend to look at the causes and whether or not they're part of a larger picture or whether or not in the micro, they're unrelated," he said. "And so, it's currently under investigation and that's about all I can say is — you have to look at each individual one and tell whether they're part of a larger scheme in the macro or whether or not they're independently caused and unrelated entirely, and that's the whole point of an investigation."

According to a recent filing with Raleigh County Circuit Court, Doss was scheduled to appear before Raleigh County Circuit Court Judge Robert A. Burnside on Monday for a docket call.

However, on Thursday, the day before his death, Doss' hearing was rescheduled for March 20 "due to the commencement of a civil trial," according to court filings.

Doss had been at SRJ for more than a year on multiple charges including the murder of Jeremy Duane Gambrell in December 2021.

According to a 2021 press release from the Raleigh County Sheriff's Office, deputies were dispatched Friday, Dec. 10, 2021, to 264 Center St., Crab Orchard, to an incident in which a male had been struck on the head and wasn't breathing.

The deputies determined that Doss had struck Gambrell on the head, resulting in his death, and the two had been in an altercation.

Doss was also facing indictments on charges of transportation of contraband substance onto the grounds of SRJ, felony conspiracy and battery of a correctional officer.

These charges stem from an incident on Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021, the day after Doss was arrested and booked into SRJ.

According to an article from The West Virginia Daily News, a West Virginia state trooper was dispatched to SRJ on Dec. 11, 2021, after two inmates, one of them being Doss, overdosed.

Citing a criminal complaint filed in Raleigh County, the article states that Doss admitted to the trooper that he "took some heroin and woke up with correctional officers on top of him."

After being administered Narcan, Doss bit one correctional officer on the arm, the complaint alleges.

Email: jmoore@register-herald.com